It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)

Friday, February 02, 2007

Winner Labour Website Of The Year

1. Solidarity - 872 votes. The winner this year is the South African union Solidarity. Solidarity placed second in last year's competition and this year won in a close race. Its highly professional website is fully bilingual (English and Afrikaans), you can join online "in under a minute", and the union has a mailing list of 30,000 email addresses. Its members are obviously enthusiastic and are proud of the effort their union is making online. Congratulatory messages may be sent to its Deputy General Secretary, Dirk Hermann - dirk@solidariteit.co.za

And I am pleased to see the IWW website came in fourth!!

4. IWW - 318 votes. The Industrial Workers of the World is a relatively small union with a very long history and an outstanding website (which won this competition 7 years ago). The more than 300 votes it received this year come not only from its members but from many who admire the effort the union is making to become increasingly relevant -- such as the extraordinary effort to organize Starbucks workers. For an example of a powerful open-source content management system being used by a union to promote community and solidarity, you couldn't do better than check out the IWW site.

And at least one Canadian site made it in the top ten. Only one that's terrible we have lots of good labour websites obviously not enough voters though.

9. HEU - 162 votes. The oldest and largest health care union in British Columbia is also this year's sole Canadian entry into the top ten. (Two years ago, four of the ten were Canadian unions.) HEU has some 40,000 members and is part of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the only union to ever have won the Labour Website of the Year twice.